


Burning

by DustySoul



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child Abuse, Gen, MWPP Era, Past Child Abuse, The Prank, You really have to squint to see the wolfstar, trigger warnings for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 20:53:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1483546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustySoul/pseuds/DustySoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something of a character study of Sirius Black, about The Prank and his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning

**Author's Note:**

> And many thanks to Queermarauders [http://queermarauders.tumblr.com/] for the through and speedy beta!  
> And, as always, comments and criticisms are welcome.

It came from the hidden place, a small, shriveled part of his heart. It was the place of looking up at his mother’s scowling face. It was the place of fog in the winter time, a crumbling graveyard blanketed in frost. It came from this place his mother’s reprimands echoed from. The place of the flogging stick and laboring like a Muggle until his knees were raw and bruised and his hands were red and burning. The place of house elf punishments and Kreacher sneering down his hooked nose muttering, “Is today the day the scoundrel Sirius is my master no more?” In the place the pause between Sirius’ cursed, “Get!” and Kreacher’s disappearance stretched for forever.

It hadn’t been a prank. This was a truth his mind buried from him, until some night running his fingers through his hair, looking at his gray eyes in the mirror when it surfaced and doubled him over the sink and choked him. It wasn’t what Severus deserved. It wasn’t what Regulus deserved. It wasn’t what his mother deserved. But the bastard had called him a man whore, a troll, an embarrassment to his family, a disgust to his mother, a bloody show off, a stain on all the purebloods, a coward, a coward, and a bundle of sticks, good for nothing except for burning. And Professor Binns never told them about that part of the witch hunts. He’d known though, and hadn't known where the knowledge came from.

If he had any control, and wits about him, he would have bit back the words, and his tongue in the process. There was a roaring in his years as Severus spat death at him. The choice was his. And it was a choice he made.

Even before he stood in front of Dumbledore the regret and vile burned stronger than any lye his dear mother mixed in the cleaning solution. It was with a spinning, sickly feeling that crept over him. His three year abstention had been broken. The last time he’d acted out of a craving for violence he’d lunged at Kreacher and his snide comment, “Is the mistress going to replace me with you? Seems fitting for a blood traitor.”

That night the snake he cursed into the sole of his foot in first year burned the worst of all. It sent him shaking and sweating and swallowing screams with the curtains drawn tight around him. It grew and wrapped itself around his ankle and bit and sent its venom into his blood and he wandered through the pain if it would kill him. Could it kill him?

When the dawn painted the world in a light haze Sirius was still awake, the snake had subsided, and was just a dull ache. He cried then, at last, silently. Not from the pain nor the memories of having his feet held to the heater by his mother and Kreacher. He cried for wanting so badly to kill someone, again. He cried for the place being ripped open once more. But most of all he cried for Remus, and the agony he’d never know when the werewolf found out.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to message or follow me on tumblr at dusty-soul.tumblr.com


End file.
